BY SCOTT STIFFLER | RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART: BRAINWAVE FESTIVAL Good art makes you think, but great art changes the way you think. It happens all the time at the Rubin Museum of Art. Through April, their Brainwave Festival explores Buddhist notions of attachment and happiness. Pairing artists with scientists, the “Conversation” series includes “Bouquet […]

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN | New York’s gallery districts have been in constant flux since the 1980s. Whereas 57th St. was the city’s first and main art center for decades, it has shifted multiple times since, most notably to Chelsea beginning in the 1990s. However, due to major developments East and West of the High Line, […]

BY SEAN EGAN | Ah, Easter Sunday. We all know how it goes. The sun is shining, the grass is green and new, the brightly colored eggs are hidden — and the giant, six-foot-tall rabbits are waiting to fight you tooth and nail for possession of them… Uh, wait. An Easter experience as demented as […]

BY SEAN EGAN | There’s no real reason that “Amour Fou” should work as well as it does. On paper, it seems to encompass all of the elements that drive people away from so-called “art house cinema.” Its story is a downer. The themes and ideas it plays with are complex and heady — and […]

BY SCOTT STIFFLER | A TRIBUTE TO THE TREDWELLS’ IRISH SERVANTS at MERCHANT’S HOUSE MUSEUM For a place that’s been living in the past since before most of us were born, Merchant’s House Museum has a knack for appealing to contemporary tastes. So whether you’re suffering from “Downton Abbey” season five withdrawal or just looking for one […]

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN (stephaniebuhmann.com) | This exhibition, which marks the artist’s first U.S. retrospective, begins with his childhood drawings and concludes with his mature political and satirical campaigns as well as animations, among others. Born in Alsace, France, in 1931, Ungerer is best known as the award-winning author and illustrator of such beloved 1960s children’s […]

BY MICHAEL LYDON | Robin Hirsch sipped thoughtfully on a glass of red wine in a quiet corner of the Cornelia Street Café. For an hour or more, with many a twinkle in his eye, he’d told tall tales of his four decades as the Café’s fearless leader — the legendary toaster oven that served […]

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN (stephaniebuhmann.com) | Featuring some of the largest work Goldberg has made recently, this ambitious exhibition continues the artist’s exploration of his signature vocabulary. Held in a grisaille palette, the latter consists of playful images of dogs, birds or ducks, for example, which are characterized by a graphic clarity reminiscent of billboard signs. These […]

BY PUMA PERL (pumaperl.blogspot.com) | When I decided to take a look at the current state of Slam Poetry, I immediately knew that NYC-Urbana, which now meets at the Sidewalk Cafe, was the team to follow. As host and current Slam Master Jared Singer says, they are “the winningest” team in the nation. Urbana, founded […]

BY SCOTT STIFFLER | Whether brightening local burlesque stages as her slinky and sweet alter ego Cherry Pitz or exposing her true self on the storytelling circuit, Cyndi Freeman has an uncanny knack for coaxing epic images from intimate moments. The two-time NY Fringe Festival award-winning solo performer — whose work as an instructor with […]